Ukrainians today celebrate their independence from Russia in 1991, “an extremely important date” for the country according to Antoine Arjakovsky, historian and director of research at the Collège des Bernardins, specialist in Ukraine, guest of franceinfo on Wednesday August 24. Beyond independence in 1991, the historian explains that since then Ukrainians “have fought a lot since then to reaffirm the fact that they have their own millennial history, that they have their own identity and culture, distinct from their neighbours”.
franceinfo: What are Ukrainians celebrating today?
Antoine Arjakovsky: On August 24, 1991, the Ukrainians seized very quickly an opportunity to take their independence offered by History. On August 19, a putsch of the Communist Party of the time takes place in Moscow and fails after three days, Boris Elstine emerges victorious. Very quickly, the Ukrainians understood that it was their chance, the deputies met, proclaimed the independence of Ukraine and submitted the proposal to the population, which ratified the text by more than 90% on December 1, 1991. remember that all the territories were in favor of independence, with Crimea and Donbass. This precipitated the end of the Soviet Union on December 26 and the beginning of the new history of Ukraine. It is an extremely important date.
Since 1991, what has happened?
The Ukrainians have since fought hard to reaffirm the fact that they have their own millennial history, that they have their own identity and culture, distinct from their neighbours, Russia and Poland.
“There were three ‘Maidan’ uprisings: the Granite Maidan in 1991 which led to the country’s independence, the Orange Revolution Maidan in 2004 and the Dignity Revolution (Euromaidan) Maidan in 2013- 2014, which was the manifestation of the Ukrainians’ desire to affirm not only democracy but also their belonging to European civilisation.”
Antoine Arjakovsky, historianat franceinfo
That’s why it’s very important, August 24 for them. There are plenty of polls published today in the Ukrainian press which say that Ukrainians feel very proud of themselves and stand in solidarity with their state.
What has changed this war on Ukrainian identity?
Until then, the Ukrainian identity was lived in a broader way: the Ukrainians are for example bilingual Russian-Ukrainian for the most part. But today, we see polls appearing saying that the majority of Ukrainians have for the most part adopted Ukrainian at home, only 30% still speak Russian there. The same at the religious level: before the war, among the 75% of Ukrainian Orthodox Christians, most said they followed the Moscow Patriarchate. Today, that figure has fallen to 4%. This war radically changed mentalities.